School will soon be in for winter. Morrin School is ready to welcome back students next week.
“We’re looking forward to another school year,” said Morrin School principal, Don Yavis. “Summer’s nice when it first comes, but by now the parents and students are itching to get back. We’re looking forward to getting at it. Our numbers look like they’re going to be the same or a little higher than last year.”
The school has some big changes this year in store for its 265 to 270 K-12 students.
Two teachers who had taken time off for maternity leave will be returning.
“We’ve got teachers coming back from maternity leave. We’ve got a new teacher covering the end of one maternity leave,” said Yavis. “Roberta Moriarty will be returning from her maternity leave. She was missing all of last year and the students are looking forward to her coming back.”
Michelle Drivers will also be returning at the beginning of the second semester from her maternity leave. In the mean time, junior high science and math will be taught by newcomer Sarah Visser.
The exterior of the building was finished its renovation earlier this year in June. A crack in the parging prompted a complete overhaul of the exterior of the school.
However, the renovation caused some problems with the gym floor.
“When the siding guys were outside doing their work, they didn’t put the downspouts on. We had some big rainstorms which did some damage to the gym floor. The floor has been good, but it is about 35 years old. It was going to need to be replaced in the next 10 to 15 years anyway. This sort of sped the process up a bit,” said Yavis.
“We’re waiting to put in a new gym floor. It doesn’t look like it will be ready by the start of the school year, so we’ll be doing some Phys Ed. outside. Hopefully we can get in the gym by the middle of September.”
One of the biggest changes is a push to help the students live healthy. In June the school unveiled the new fitness room.
The school has also gone junk food free. Vending machines containing pop and snacks like chips and chocolate bars were removed. All that remains are machines selling water or juice.
“There’s a big push in Alberta Education to improve the fitness and health of the kids. Junk food is out. We have no junk vending machines, so pop and chips are out,” said Yavis. “The School Board approached our Senior and Junior High and said if they wanted to design a new area they would give them money, but the deal was out with the junk food.”
Grade 7 and 8 students designed a 60’s diner area in the hobby area. But unlike a real retro diner, you can’t go for a soda at Morrin School.
There is also another initiative in the works to help the students eat healthy.
“We’re hoping to get a hot lunch program going once a week or every two weeks. We have a concession that runs every two weeks now, so we hope to run the hot lunch each opposite week,” said Yavis. “We want to make sure kids have something healthy to eat and we’ve got a lot of options for the kids to make quality health choices.”
Morrin School first day of classes is on Thursday, August 30.
